Shivjeet Kullar

The author is a legendary ad man who has won over a 100 awards in his career. He is also an author, a novelist a playwright and song writer. Now he has founded the unusual and powerful website adytude.com which helps power other websites, brands and businesses ahead

Let’s start with the madness. This is not a crazy over the top madness that drives you berserk and has you smashing computers, slapping your boss or jumping out of the window. It is rather a low frequency maddening buzz that keeps your brain in a constant state of anxiety and stress.

Why did I say that in the meeting today? Who is this new guy in office, has he been hired to replace me? What if I lose my job in the coming slowdown? When will my father-in-law agree that I am good enough for his daughter? Will I be able to lose weight to stop my blood pressure problems? Which school will I be able to get my child into?

This is Channel LGM18.0 FM. LGM stands for Low Grade Madness and it broadcasts for 18 hours a day – stopping only for the eight hours when you sleep (if of course, you do get eight hours’ sleep).

I’m calling it Modern day Madness because it is intensified in the modern day world we live in. There are so many stress points. Life is moving so fast. Our brain is getting overflooded with information. There doesn’t seem to be a pause to rest and recharge!

It has us constantly complaining. Constantly distracted from the simpler joys of life. Always wary that something bad is going to happen. Always looking at someone else and envying them. And always wondering when we’ll be happy.

So what’s the solution? None. Because there is no problem. There’s no madness in the air. It’s just ungratefulness.

Stop and think. Really think of all the times you’ve been saved by a coincidence, by a stroke of luck. That resignation letter you never sent. The stock you almost put your money into which tanked completely. That growth in your baby’s ultrasound which could have been so dangerous but turned out to be nothing. That pain in your heart which you were sure was a heart attack but wasn’t. That accident on the road which you missed by a whisper.

You feel that these are just lucky coincidences. No they are bits of magic. Real magic.

In fact most of the anxieties you feel are illusions. Because they all are about projecting future disaster scenarios that will never happen. Think of all the things that you’ve really worried about in the past year. How many of them actually happened?So the worries were illusions. But the magic was real.

Now dare we take this step further? Sometimes there are pieces of magic or events that have threaded such a way that the end result was nothing short of a miracle.

One of my friends recently took up Badminton (event 1). He then developed a back problem because he hadn’t been warming up properly (event 2). While accompanying his wife for an X-ray he decided on the spur of the moment to get a neck scan also (event 3). They found a dangerous growth on his thyroid which if not operated would have been fatal (event 4). All these events happened in a casual way across six months, but put together are a miracle!

Think. I can bet you have also had one. Two final things. First – recognise miracles for what they are. Second. Stop imagining bad stuff. How will the impossible happen if you can’t even imagine it?